After triumphantly taking the stage last night, Q-Tip hoisted his shoulders back like Superman, grabbed the mike, pointed at his magnificent black shades and muttered, “I swear I’m not a douche bag. My eyes—I’ve been rubbin’ those shits out. I got allergies!” Being interviewed as part of the excellent Noisemakers with Peter Rosenberg series at 92YTribeca, the Tribe Called Quest legend completely owned the room with his mixture of wit, old stories and verbal dexterity.

Thankfully, the usual milky-white sterility of the venue was met with a diverse crowd (all boroughs got their shout-outs). The audience remained reverent while the Abstract recounted his career with the kind of stories that keep hip-hop fans alive through recessions. The interview started with an analysis of The Renaissance, Tip’s don’t-call-it-a-comeback album that was recorded because “the lack of creativity in hip-hop had a direct correlation to where were at as a society.”

From there, Rosenberg went back in the day, asking about Q-Tip’s youth (he went to church with Phife Dawg!) and his initial immersion into the world of beats (he made “Bonita Applebum” when he was 15!). Other “oh shit”–level gems: Tip battled Ol’ Dirty Bastard; Busta Rhymes was almost a fifth member of Tribe. The night culminated with ?uestlove joining Tip on stage for an impromptu J Dilla tribute that eventually found both icons on the same drum set.

As an event, Noisemakers is like a warped version of The Tonight Show (except it doesn’t end with tears of boredom). A fusion house-band, the Cypher, held down the fort with reproduced beats from throughout Q-Tip’s history. The band was actually quite impressive as a buffer between interview segments, and even though they had a slightly hilarious high-school jazz-band look going, their renditions of songs such as “Gettin’ Up” and “Award Tour” were perfectly executed.—Carter Maness